Financial Planning

Client Priorities – Client First

Customer priorities

In a recent study by Investor’s Research Inc., clients were asked what their priorities were with their financial advisor***. Here were their top six priorities:

1. Understand my situation
2. Educate me
3. Respect my assets (no matter how small)
4. Solve my problem – don’t sell me product
5. Monitor my progress
6. Keep in touch

*** From the book, Story selling for financial advisors, by Scott West & Mitch Anthony

Very simple & heartfelt.
I guess, most of us fall in the same line.

It’s no surprise and a great honour for us at www.moneyfrog.in today. Why?
As we have designed & built our platform, process & advisory based on above philosophy.

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Demonetisation effect

demonetisation-effect

With demonetisation almost nearing its completion & 80% of the old notes back with the banks, most of us are questioning, what next?

Well, to start with, we are moving in the phase where quite a lot of individuals & families have either declared or will start operating with white money now. In short, we have more people having white money in hand going forward, which will soon start demanding white investments.

Real estate & gold, which used to be the main source for black-money, now will (more…)

Child education – How much will college cost in future?

child-education

To send our child to the best of the colleges, is always top of our wish list. A good college education can open door to many opportunities. But college degree doesn’t come cheap and if we don’t start planning it right now, we will have a sorry face, when our child is ready to go. Therefore, the best thing to do is to start saving early.

How much will it cost?

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Black or White – what do I do?

black-money-tax-scan

Our dear Prime Minister is known for surprise, and the biggest was on 8th evening, when he announced to demonetize INR 500 & 1000 currency notes. It’s a known fact, that in India we have a parallel economy running on black money, also known as shadow economy. Whatever measures & schemes offered by government, still they were not able to control or stop the flow of black money. Finally, the masterstroke!!!

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My Wife’s Treasure Chest

Hidden Treasure

With our PM Modi’s bold move to phase out old INR 500 & 1000 currency notes, we have a new crisis at home today. I am checking my wallet, bags & hidden areas to weed out any notes, suddenly we have bundle of notes, popping out of kitchen cabinets, dressers &areas we wouldn’t even imagine.

And guess, who’s behind this, my dear “Wife” … all these years she’s been keeping or stacking notes in some place or the other, which comes as small change, shagun(gifts) or any other savings. She would not even bother to look back to check, whether it’s there or not, or how much is stacked.

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The Best Gift Ever Received

best-gift-ever

We have heard stories, where kids from their pocket money savings, have purchased an expensive music system or gifted an expensive wrist watch to their parents. If it’s my generation, i.e. 80’s, we were saving this in our piggy banks, whereas today same gets parked in a real bank savings account (kids).

I have not come across any parents till date, who would have started a culture of kids saving same in equity mutual funds. Why?

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My dream – How to become Rich?

My dream - How to become Rich?

I thought of writing something differently this time. I asked this question, what is one common dream, most of us look forward to. I didn’t have to scratch my head, “how to become rich” is everyone’s dream, but very few live to live this dream.

It’s not about the dreaming, but it’s all about the efforts put to live this dream.

My best analogy is old DD comedy show of “Mungerilal ke haseen sapne”, where Raghubir Yadav used to dream big and while dreaming, will elaborately get into details & hard work, but only in his dream, and towards the end when he wakes-up, he is back with nothing in hand 😉

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Investments – too much clutter in the marketplace!

cluttered marketplace

On one hand, we have Investment product sellers; like banks, brokers & individual consultants, who sell investment products, claiming to offer the best solution with detailed research reports.

On the other hand, we have manufacturers, like mutual funds & insurance companies, offering mouth-watering deals with smart TV & print commercials.

Who do we believe & trust?

As once a product is sold, one gets to know or understand the actual value of the product only after few years or later, that too when one meets a new advisor or spends some time on knowing the product 😉

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Power of Small Savings – Investment series 1

In my last article, I wrote on two key challenges, we as Robo-advisors face; i.e. “Customer mind-set” towards investments, where it comes as last priority and “Meaning of investments”, where quality is not understood.

To sum it up… how do you motivate customers?

Unlike e-commerce portals, based on current theme, it’s the deep discount that attracts. We have cases (many); where customer go to malls or retail outlet on look & feel, and finally will swap on their smart phone to check on availability & discount, and punch the order… which is obvious, where?

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Robo Advisor

Roboadvisors

As per Wikipedia; “Robo-advisors are a class of financial adviser that provides financial advice or portfolio management online, with minimal human intervention”.

Most Robo-advisors employ algorithms, where automated investment solutions come out as output, based on customer’s data points; towards cash flow, future goals, risk tolerance, current investments etc.

Logic & working of these algorithms, which can be simple to complex, depends on the solutions offered to various category of customers, which also depends on firm’s/ founders experience & expertise.

Indian Context

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